Recently, I discovered something interesting. I was looking for images of Astro Girl on Google, and I came across a Japanese version of... Supergirl - with similar costume - and in more than technical violation of Warner/DC's copyright. Then I discovered, partially by stumbling across a specialty website, that there is a whole subgenre of Japanese female action hero films. While there are other subgenres, some not directly related, there is one overlapping one of Japanese female exploitation films. See: http://brooklynrail.org/2006/04/film/dv ... id-wilentz Running through these to the others, is a soft-core theme, besides kick-ass Japanese girls, along with cowering, not-so-tough male bad guys who get hammered.

Relevance to Sailor Moon? See above, plus covert and overt fanservice in the original anime. Why? A common company: Toei films - who also does animated kids' TV shows. Anyhow, the specific live film genre is known as "pink", "pinku", "pinky", "pinky violence", etc. I have seen a book listing a couple of times, on this subject, in the Diamond Previews monthly comic catalogue, More to the point, I think this should clear up any lingering mystery about how and why the live-action Sailor Moon was done, and its latent appeal as well as its overall presentation; and additionally explain much of the accompanying campiness. Hope that this enlightens you as well.